Do you know whether you have an ancestor who was a slave trader or a pirate?! Many residents of the Mascarene islands are aware that they have a slave forebear and in societies which depended on servile labour, it is not uncommon to have the blood of both the enslaved and those who profited from slavery coursing through one’s veins. It is said of the Indian Ocean that the first European and north American traders all behaved piratically and that those who came as pirates often ended up as slave traders, drawing upon their familiarity with pirate haunts such as Madagascar to further enrich themselves. On the Indian Ocean island of Réunion, in the late 17th century, around 10% of heads of households were pirates; consequently a large proportion of the population have pirate forebears.

We are delighted to present to our francophone readers this remarkable work of Réunionnese poet Catherine Boudet, in contemplation of her own ancestor who was both a pirate and a slave trader. We are grateful to Ms Boudet for giving us permission to reproduce her poem below.

Born in 1968 at Saint-Denis on Reunion Island and resident in Mauritius, journalist and writer Catherine Boudet has published three poetry books: Resîliences (L’Harmattan, 2007), Le Barattage de la mer de lait (Ndze, 2009) and Nos éparses nos sulfureuses (Acoria, 2010). Her next poetry book, titled Haïkons, petits poems à emporter, influenced by the Japanese haiku style, will be published shortly.

Catherine’s poetry questions insular identities and she has introduced the concept of “déshistoire” to account for the difficulties of tackling the issues of modernity and development in islands where identities are mainly history-orientated.

Her journalism focusses on issues of identity and ethnicity, consociational democracy and nation-building.